


oh, i'm counting all the numbers between zero and one

by getmean



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Sickfic, a departure from canon?, like a sidestep from canon lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23380036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: 'TRY OUR NEW VEGAN WHOPPER’the billboard urges. Elliot gazes up at it, Flipper nosing at the ground by his shoes as his stomach growls at the picture of the burger, ten feet tall and not looking very vegan at all. He’s hungry, how hadn’t he realised he was hungry?Seinfeldsucks the mind in like that. Elliot can’t remember the last time he ate.
Relationships: Elliot Alderson/Leon
Comments: 12
Kudos: 41





	oh, i'm counting all the numbers between zero and one

**Author's Note:**

> this was a little fic for my partner kish :~) i've been slacking at uploading it lol but the time is now!

They’ve installed a new billboard in the street outside Elliot’s apartment; one of those huge electric ones which beams coloured light through the blinds into his bedroom all night. A week ago, it’d been purple. Elliot doesn’t remember what ad. He doesn’t look out of the window much, not enough to remember shit like that. This week, it’s warm, like a red or an orange or a yellow. Striping the dim room in amber, over his keyboard and his desk and the unmade lump of his bed. 

Elliot isn’t part of the lump just yet. He’s sat on the sofa with an episode of Seinfeld playing on low for background noise, Flipper belly-up in his lap. His eyes burn with tiredness, but there’s something keeping him from sleep. A strange restlessness that has him unfocused on the episode in front of him, but unable to pick something to get focused on instead. A joint burns in the ashtray on the arm of the sofa. In his lap, Flipper sighs. 

Maybe he’s restless because he’s stoned. Maybe he’s restless because he’s so tired he’s bypassed sleep altogether and he’s gonna be up for the next few days, wide-eyed and jittering. That happens a lot. He scratches his fingers over Flipper’s coarsely-furred belly, and reaches for the joint with his other hand. The episode in front of him flickers the room white, dark, blue. The light from the billboard is a steady counterpoint to it. 

Maybe it’s the light. Like he isn’t sleeping because that thing is burning pure capitalist dirt directly into his retinas all night, whether he’s awake or asleep. Like that episode of _Seinfeld_ with the red light in Kramer’s apartment. Elliot doesn’t feel quite as mad as him, but figures it’s only a matter of time.

The joint burns audibly in the quiet apartment. Paper rasping as he takes a hit, and sinks back further into the couch. Knees spreading as he slumps, Flipper moving with him. A warm, stinky weight on his belly.

“You wanna go for a bedtime pee?” he asks her, snorting as her ears perk up at the familiar words. “Huh, do you?”

Elliot leaves the show playing to no-one, joint in the ashtray waiting.

Downstairs he can feel the bite of the cold in the hallway before he even sets foot outside. Once in the street, it’s that kind of freezing that snatches your breath from your lungs before you can even breathe it out. Elliot hunches his shoulders up to his ears in some vague attempt to keep himself warm, standing stock still in the middle of the street watching Flipper sniff around on the end of her leash. It always takes her a long time. She’s fussy, just like someone else he knows. 

A gust of wind sweeps dried leaves to rattle down the empty street, and Elliot groans and shrinks closer to the side of the steps leading to his building. Darlene has been trying to get him to thrift himself a new winter jacket for months, but he keeps putting it off. He knows that at some point, if he waits long enough, she’ll just do it for him. He has about a month left of being cold before she buckles, by his estimation. 

Outside is awash in the same warm glow that’s striping his room upstairs. So warm and yellow and inviting that Elliot feels like he shouldn’t be as cold as he is. 

_’TRY OUR NEW VEGAN WHOPPER’_ the billboard urges. Elliot gazes up at it, Flipper nosing at the ground by his shoes as his stomach growls at the picture of the burger, ten feet tall and not looking very vegan at all. He’s hungry, how hadn’t he realised he was hungry? _Seinfeld_ sucks the mind in like that. Elliot can’t remember the last time he ate. 

He pulls his phone from his hoodie pocket as his stoned mind tries hard to come up with what that burger could even be made of. Tofu, right? Grass? And then he thinks, _ha, grass-fed grass,_ and laughs to himself as he scrolls through his message threads. He tends to delete them once a week, but Leon texts him roughly ten to fifteen times a day so it doesn’t take any more than a quick tap to pull their thread up.

His last text reads, _saw a cat with no tail. how fucked is that?_

Elliot hadn’t replied. The one before that is the classic, _u up?_ sent at a very conservative eight pm. Elliot hadn’t replied to that either. Now, he texts: _did u see bk vegan whopper,_ and watches as the three grey dots of Leon’s reply bounce up immediately. It makes Elliot smile, imagining him sat at home glued to his phone.

 _want bk?_ Leon asks, and then, _made of fuckin grass. lol._

Elliot grins, lit up from below by his phone as he taps out a hasty, _yes come over._

Flipper nudges her nose to his calf then, and Elliot tucks his phone away, bending with a groan to scoop her up. “Did you go?” he asks, tucking her under his arm as he takes the steps up to the front door, fumbling his key from his pocket with his free hand. Flipper’s tail wags against his side. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “Let’s get outta the cold.”

Elliot sinks back into the sofa and into the TV show as soon as they get in, Flipper still excited by the brief trip outside so she can’t settle. Races around the apartment while Elliot finishes the joint and thinks about getting up to look in the mirror and see how he’s doing. Just thinks about it. Leon’s seen him in worse states than stoned-hungry-sleepless, in fact, it might be one of the better states he’s seen him in. Nothing to get up from the couch over.

“Leon’s coming over,” he tells Flipper, who is drinking noisily from her water bowl. Elliot refocuses on the episode, on Elaine trying to get a diaphragm. “Yeah, I know,” he mumbles, to the dog’s wordless response, toying with the zipper on his hoodie. “He’ll bring you something.”

The buzzer goes, and Elliot scrapes himself off the sofa to buzz Leon in and crack his front door so he won’t have to get up twice. And since he’s up, well. Maybe Elliot darts into the bathroom to push his hair this way and that and bare his teeth to his reflection. It’s past midnight. Should he brush his teeth?

“Hey, hey.” The skitter of paws, and then Leon’s low, deep voice is invading the apartment. “Oh, baby, didja miss me? Is your daddy keepin’ you from me?” 

Leon’s such a presence that Elliot’s apartment always feels even tinier than it is when he’s in it. Tall, rangy, kicking the door shut behind him because he’s picked Flipper up around her middle to wave her around. The little dog’s tail is going so quick it reminds Elliot of a boat propeller. He laughs, and Leon turns his big grin on him. 

“Elli,” he says, by way of greeting, and turns just enough for Elliot to see the plastic Burger King bag hanging over his elbow. “Got the goods.”

He smells like weed and spicy, musky cologne when Elliot comes closer to extricate the food from the tangle of Leon-and-Flipper. Smells so good it makes Elliot’s stomach flip, sends his dick aching between his legs in a quick pulse. But the food is the bigger draw, his stomach feeling almost hollow all of a sudden, like if he doesn’t get any food in himself he’ll collapse inwards. 

“You smoking?” Leon asks, wandering further into the apartment with Flipper tucked away under his arm now. Elliot slumps back down into the sofa, and watches Leon’s pretty black eyes sweep over him. Feels warmth settle over him in the wake of it. 

He shrugs. “Yeah.”

Leon grins at him, looking so stupid and so handsome stood there like a fucking mirage in Elliot’s shabby apartment. Pressed white tee that looks like it’s come straight from the packet, though Elliot knows better than to think any of Leon’s clothes come from a packet. Elliot wants to smell it, wants to wear it, wants to — wants to eat this fucking Burger King, actually. 

“Hungry?” Leon asks, jiggling Flipper in his arms like a little baby as he paces the full length of Elliot’s apartment. Elliot watches him, watches the way the dim lamplight catches slick in the gold chain flirting at him from the collar of Leon’s white tee, at the rings on his fingers and the ones in his ear. He always does this slow sweep of Elliot’s apartment. Elliot just wants him to sit down already, wants the big warm bulk of him nearby. 

“Starving,” he says, just for the grin Leon flashes his way. Lights him up warm like a sweet little precursor to how it’ll feel to have him close, in a second. He’s put Flipper down. It’s a good sign. 

“How come you didn’t answer my text?” Leon comes closer, nudges at Elliot’s wide-apart knees to make room for him on the sofa.

Elliot shifts. “Which one?” 

“Ha.” Leon folds himself into the space next to Elliot, his big long limbs sprawled everywhere as he reaches to steal a fry from Elliot’s lap. “Any.”

“Guess I wasn’t up.”

Another fry, and then Leon leans across the rewind the episode. He’s stoned; Elliot can tell by the whites of his eyes, by the lazy grin he levels Elliot with as he leans back into the sofa, and into Elliot’s side. 

Big dark doe eyes, the full curve of his mouth barely more than a smudge through the dim light. He’s the only person who actually still looks beautiful in Elliot’s shitty apartment. Leon urges Elliot into a kiss with a finger under his chin, and then warns, “Don’t eat too quick.”

Elliot’s breath is caught in his chest. He tears into the burger just to try and press it down.

———

After the third glass of water, Elliot’s ready to admit the vegan burger isn’t settling well with him. 

Maybe he’s being unfair to the vegan burger. Maybe it was the two portions of fries he ate in five minutes flat, or the fact that he’d dumped a load of hot, salty food into the shrivelled up walnut that his stomach undoubtedly was after forgetting to eat for a while. Maybe it wasn’t the vegan burger’s fault at all, because Elliot’s stomach was a little prone to rejecting anything, whether it was something known or not. 

He paces from bed to sink, and then refills his water glass. His mouth feels dry, like something’s stuck behind his tonsils. Stomach huge and uncomfortable like all that food is just sitting still in it. 

Leon watches from the sofa, vaguely amused judging by the ghost of a smile around his mouth. Phone glowing in one hand, a joint snaking smoke towards the ceiling in the other. Elliot watches the cherry of it glow as he takes a hit, his own head feeling stuffed up with cotton-wool from all the weed he’s smoked and the food coma he seems to be lapsing into. 

“You good?” Leon asks, Flipper a little dark lump on his chest. Elliot nods jerkily, wishing he could take his fucking pants off without drawing attention to his discomfort. It’s embarrassing. His mother had trained any kind of outward complaining out of him before he turned thirteen. Now here he is with a stomachache like a kid, and Leon is shrugging and smiling and turning back to their impromptu _Seinfeld_ re-run marathon. Flipper shifts on his chest. Elliot spares just a moment to think about how she’s probably ruining that nice white tee, and then gets back to feeling uncomfortable. 

He sits next to Leon, the button of his jeans digging into his stomach as he rests his head on Leon’s shoulder. He hums, and drops his phone to his thigh so he can reach back to scratch his fingernails through the cropped hair above Elliot’s ear.

“You been out much?” he asks, as Elliot gives in for the urge for comfort and presses his face into the crook of Leon’s neck. He makes a negative noise, and Leon laughs. “How’d I know?”

“It’s cold,” Elliot mumbles. “The light’s keeping me up.”

“I saw that when I came up. See where you got the Burger King craving from.”

Elliot groans, unable to even think of the food. Leon’s thumb smoothes over his cheek. “I missed Flip,” he says. “Walk her over to my place some time. Bet she’d be glad for a stretch.”

Elliot grunts. “She’s lazy. She’ll get tired and never wanna leave, and then she’ll be yours.”

Leon laughs, and his hand drops from patting at Elliot’s hair to scratch at Flipper’s little head. “Think we’d both like that.” 

“You’d spoil her.” 

Leon’s voice is pleased when he says, “Yeah, I would.”

They lapse into silence, curled up together with the laptop playing on low and the smoke making the room seem hazy, faraway. Leon settles his arm over the back of the couch, and then slips it around Elliot’s shoulders, drawing him in closer to his side. Elliot closes his eyes, breath coming slow. If it wasn’t for the heavy weight in his stomach of all that stupid fast food, he thinks he could fall asleep like this. The smell of Leon in his nose; his skin, his clothes, whatever he puts in his hair to make it smell so good. On anybody else it’d be a cacophony of smells but Leon wears it well, all of it blending together into a comfortable second-skin of a smell that Elliot is sure he’d be able to pick out from a line-up. Musk, something peppery, something warm and masculine and so close to skin it almost feels like it could all just be him. 

Tomorrow, Elliot’s pillows and bedsheets will smell like it. Even just the thought is making him sleepy. But the nausea persists. 

_Why is there no haggling in this country?_ George bemoans from the laptop screen, and Leon laughs, the sound low and smoky and made dopey by the weed. He moves with it, jostling Elliot, who groans and sits up, unable to keep it up any longer. 

Leon’s arm comes away from him as Elliot moves, stomach feeling like a stone’s sitting in it. Leon shoots him a look like he’s been waiting for Elliot to say something. 

“Alright?”

“Ugh,” Elliot says, and then, “No.”

Helpfully, Leon says, “You look like you’re gonna puke.”

“I feel like it too,” Elliot groans, and then stands, unable to take sitting with the button of his jeans digging into him like that anymore. “Ate too much.”

“Ate too _quick_ ,” Leon corrects, and plops Flipper down into the spot Elliot had just vacated as he stands to follow Elliot. “Eatin’ too far apart.”

Elliot ignores him; he’s heard it all before.

“I knew that vegan burger was gonna be bad,” Leon continues, after a beat of silence. Elliot fights back a groan that has nothing to do with his nausea, wandering close to the bed before wrestling himself out of his jeans. Once Leon’s on a track, it’s hard to derail him. “I just knew it was gonna get you like that, Elli. Once the body’s used to processed, factory-farmed meat, havin’ somethin’ good in it is like putting sugar into a car —” He stops, only because he’s wandered into the bathroom, and Elliot can hear him brushing his teeth. 

Taking advantage of the brief silence, Elliot leans across to crack his window open, letting the cool air wash over his clammy skin and dry the cold sweat on his brow. He hates feeling sick, hates it the most out of a lot of things maybe just because he’s always been sickly like this. Easily upset stomach. And between that and the detoxing, he’s pretty much had his share of throwing up for life. 

The Burger King ad glows mockingly at him from across the street, and when he lets the blinds drop back over the open windows, the breeze from outside moves them, and moves the light. Elliot tries to ignore it, wrestling his shirt from over his head just as Leon comes back through, Flipper on his heels.

“ — Once the human body gets used to eatin’ shit, it’s gonna want shit, El.”

Elliot flops down onto his bed with a groan, hand going to smooth over his stomach. “Are you calling the Burger King vegan burger, good food?”

There’s a beat of silence. Elliot listens to Flipper making herself comfortable in her little bed under his desk, and then Leon kisses his teeth, and says, “Well, no, I —”

Elliot sighs, eyes closed shut against that light and his hand easing over his uncomfortable stomach. The desire to have Leon curled up warm and big and smelling good against him is unbearable. “Come to bed,” he murmurs, voice small and pathetic-sounding. “Please.”

The traffic below the window rushes by, voices from the street drifting up. Elliot puts his forearm over his eyes, listening to Leon pulling his clothes off before the bed dips, and for a moment the light is blissfully blocked out by Leon leaning close to press a kiss to Elliot’s forehead. 

“’S really got you feelin’ bad, huh?” he murmurs, voice gentle now. Elliot hums, and turns blindly towards the warmth and solidness of Leon’s body. He can be so tender when he wants to be. “Little cat stomach,” he adds, a smile in his voice as his hand cups the side of Elliot’s head, warm and protective as he turns Elliot’s face into his neck.

Darkness, the warm skin smell of him. Elliot breathes out slow through his nose, and with the first touch of Leon’s big hand to his stomach, his muscles start to unwind. 

If Elliot’s hands are always cold, he knows exactly where all his heat goes. Leon’s hands broad and hot, perfectly soothing as he starts to rub at Elliot’s stomach, trying to ease his discomfort. Elliot makes a noise in the back of his throat, halfway between a groan and a sigh of satisfaction, and Leon snorts at him, kisses his ear.

“Feels good?” he murmurs, and Elliot nods, face tucked close to Leon’s throat. It does; the firm, warm circles his hands are making are just as soothing to his stomach as they’re soothing to that little part of him that so badly wishes to be touched. To be getting touched at all times. Shrivelled little touch-starved part of him that it is. 

If he really was the cat that Leon seems to think he is, Elliot knows he’d be purring right now. 

“Kiss me,” he mumbles, and Leon does; kissing at the shell of his ear, his temple, until Elliot tilts his face just right for Leon to catch his lips. It’s slow, gentle; Leon’s as stoned and sleepy as Elliot is too, though Elliot feels more like he’s edging towards exhaustion than sleepiness. His eyelids are too heavy to open. Leon drops a kiss to each of them before Elliot hides his face down against the light of the billboard again. The room fills with the sounds of the world outside, those comforting city noises that Elliot needs to fall asleep to these days. Just that, the low hum of his computer, and Leon’s soft breathing.

His hot palm to Elliot’s belly, drawing the pain up and out of him. Already Elliot feels he can breathe easier. Like every movement isn’t sending his stomach into his throat anymore. He wonders if Leon had thought this was how their night would go, wonders briefly if Leon’s mad that they didn’t fuck like he’d probably thought they were going to. 

“You can sleep at mine whenever you need to,” Leon murmurs, then, as perfectly placed as if he can read Elliot’s mind. Elliot lets the last of the tenseness leave him.

Elliot falls asleep before Leon, for once, lulled by the careful way he’s touching him, by the warm weight of his body against his own. Darkness, behind his eyes, skin on skin and musk in his nose.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!


End file.
